Join us Sunday, June 8th from 1pm to 3pm for a meaningful afternoon learning about the stately homes around the Lake of the Isles and how Alliance Housing fits into the history of affordable housing in Minneapolis.
Led by Alliance Housing Board Chair Emeritus Ben Olk, all ticket sales go directly to supporting Alliance Housing!
Tickets are available for $60 and space is limited so be sure to reserve your spot before they sell out!
When Emily first moved into an Alliance home in September of 2020, she’d been couch hopping and staying in shelters with her partner and their young daughter. They’d been unsuccessful in finding stable housing due to her partner’s criminal background, but their case manager connected them with Alliance and within a week and a half they’d moved into an Alliance home and found stability. Since then, Emily and her family have continued to live with Alliance and her relationship with the organization has grown in unexpected ways.
After being featured in the video for our Fundraising Breakfast in 2023, she joined the Alliance Board of Directors. Then a few months ago Emily got a phone call out of the blue from Mike, our Senior Property Manager. “I thought I was in trouble,” Emily laughs, but he was calling to offer her a job. Already familiar with Alliance staff from being a resident and board member, Emily accepted and now works as Alliance’s Property Management Administrative Assistant.
“Our goal is to foster a staff culture that values a respectful relationship with residents,” says Mike. “Emily brings to the team a unique experience of being a resident, so she can truly enlighten other staff members on a resident’s perspective.” Jessie, our Executive Director adds that Emily’s lived experience with homelessness “helps us as a team walk in the shoes of those we serve.”
Not only does Emily’s perspective help Alliance with providing relational property management, but she also provides unique insight into what sets Alliance apart: “Alliance is family oriented,” Emily explains. “They don’t call just to say you’re late on rent. Alliance calls to check in and see what’s going on.”
Emily knows firsthand that a compassionate and relational approach to property management can make a huge difference in someone’s life. When she was in school, Alliance staff celebrated her academic achievements every time they checked in. Jessie became Emily’s “biggest cheerleader” throughout her education journey. Since becoming an Alliance resident, Emily has graduated with both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Healthcare Management, which she counts as one of her proudest achievements.
Looking ahead, Emily hopes to continue advancing within Alliance while helping the organization expand its impact in Minneapolis. If there is one thing she’d like supporters to know about Alliance, Emily says it’s that “Alliance gives people a chance to sprout and then is there to support you when you blossom.”
For the last 18 months, Alliance Executive Director Jessie Hendel has served as a member of the Task Force on Long-Term Sustainability of Affordable Housing. Created by the Minnesota State Legislature, the Task Force was charged with:
1) Assessing financial challenges to develop, operate, and preserve safe, affordable, and dignified housing
2) Evaluating current financing and administrative tools to develop, operate, and preserve safe affordable housing
3) Evaluate financial or asset management practices of affordable housing providers and support for asset management functions by funder organizations
4) Recommend potential solutions to develop and preserve safe and affordable housing.
Essentially, the Task Force’s goal is to ensure organizations don’t find themselves in situations like we have with 2011 Pillsbury.
The Task Force completed its work in February (you can find the final report here) and on February 25, Jessie joined several other members of the Task Force in testifying before the Senate Housing and Homeless Prevention Committee. In addition to the Task Force’s final report, many testifiers spoke about the results of the Distressed Property Data Project, which demonstrates in stark terms the financial challenges all affordable housing providers in Minnesota face. To pick just a single data point from the report, investigators analyzed the finances of over 26,000 homes in more than 450 buildings across Minnesota and found property insurance costs increased $240-$260 per home between 2018 and 2023. For a 50-unit building this would result in an insurance increase of up to $13,000 over the course of five years. As Project for Pride in Living Chief Operating Officer Scott Cordes testified, when it comes to keeping buildings affordable in the face of these increased costs “the math doesn’t math.”
In her testimony, Jessie spoke about our experience with 2011 Pillsbury and the increase in operating losses there from $100,000 in 2020 to $250,000 in 2024. This led to the difficult decision to sell the building so we don’t put our ability to continue to serve residents in other buildings at risk. Former Hope Community Executive Director Shannon Smith Jones testified about losing Dundry House shortly after putting $2 million into the property. Family Housing Fund President Ellen Sahli noted that “all affordable housing providers, nonprofit and for profit, Metro and in Greater Minnesota, are struggling.”
Having completed its report, the Task Force, and all affordable housing advocates in Minnesota, now look to the legislature to take the next steps. As Task Force member Joseph Abraham, principal owner of Pergola Property Management, noted, many members of the Task Force served on a similar group under Governor Dayton, but governmental follow up on that group’s recommendations wasn’t there. Accordingly, Mr. Abraham let the Committee know “the hard work is what you face now.” At Alliance we intend to keep advocating and pressing our governments at all levels to take the steps necessary to ensure no Minneapolis resident lives in housing insecurity or homelessness.
Register for a tour on Eventbrite!
Join Alliance staff for a guided tour of Minnehaha Commons, one of our apartment buildings, and see firsthand how it provides affordable, accessible housing for older adults in Minneapolis.
Tours will be led by Alliance’s Director of Development, Craig Freeman, at 1:00 PM and 2:30 PM on Thursday, April 3rd.
Staff from Property Solutions & Services, our onsite property management team, and Touchstone Mental Health, our onsite service provider, will also be available to answer questions and share insights about their work.
Located on Lake Street, Minnehaha Commons offers 44 units of supportive housing for adults aged 55 and older. This tour is a unique opportunity to learn about the critical role this building plays in providing stable housing for older adults, as well as how Alliance Housing creates affordable homes through strong community partnerships.
As Alliance continues to grow, we hope you’ll use this opportunity to introduce someone in your life to our work. If you know a neighbor, coworker, or friend who shares your love for neighbors or someone looking to take action in today’s political climate this tour is the perfect way to get them involved. Help us spread the word about our work and share how Alliance makes Minneapolis a better place to live!
Please contact Eva with any questions eschmidt@alliancehousinginc.org.
Earlier this month, Alliance resident Tyrone Shields testified before the Minnesota Senate’s Housing and Homelessness Prevention Committee in support of SF 203, the Housing Infrastructure Bonds bill. Many of you may already know Tyrone from our last Fundraising Breakfast, where he was featured in a video, or from the groundbreaking of our newest property, Kyle Garden Square, in September where he spoke.
The bill, authored by Senator Lindsey Port who chairs the Housing and Homelessness Prevention Committee, proposes $400 million in Housing Infrastructure Bonds (HIBs), one of the largest and most flexible sources of funding for affordable housing in Minnesota. These funds would support both the development of new affordable housing and the maintenance and preservation of existing properties. Since 2012, HIBs have been used to fund more than 7,000 units of affordable housing in Minnesota.
Many developers, including Alliance, have faced significant financial challenges in both developing new affordable housing as well as maintaining current housing. Our experience with 2011 Pillsbury demonstrated how the cost of upkeep can far exceed available resources. This bill aims to ensure that such challenges do not continue to jeopardize affordable housing across the state as well as promote the development of new housing.
Tyrone testified as a housing advocate on behalf of Alliance, sharing how finding housing with Alliance allowed him to return to school, earn his B.A., secure stable employment, and build his relationship with his children. His testimony highlighted the impact that access to housing can have and the importance of preserving it. In his words, “By passing this bill, we can create more housing for the thousands of families trying to find safe and affordable housing.”
We are incredibly grateful to Tyrone for taking the time to share his lived experience and for lending his voice to such an important cause.
Other testifiers, including representatives from the American Indian Community Development Corporation, Riverton Community Housing, and LiUNA, emphasized how HIBs have supported their organizations in developing new housing, maintaining existing properties amid rising costs, and creating opportunities for homeownership and jobs. If you’d like to watch the full committee hearing, you can view it on the Minnesota Senate website: February 11th Committee on Housing and Homelessness Prevention Meeting
Hello Alliance supporters and donors! I am Alliance’s new (and first!) Director of Development, Craig Freeman, and want to take this opportunity to introduce myself and what I do at Alliance.
I come to Alliance with years of experience fundraising for housing organizations. Most recently I spent 6+ years on the advancement team at Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, helping raise money to develop and maintain deeply affordable, supportive housing very similar to that developed at Alliance. Prior to Beacon I spent two years fundraising for Avenues for Youth, an organization that provides transitional housing and shelter to youth aged 16-24 who are experiencing homelessness. This history put me on firm footing to hit the ground running at Alliance because I already understand the Twin Cities housing community and the societal pressures currently putting strain on it.
Additionally, before becoming a fundraiser I had a 12-year career as a litigation attorney in the Twin Cities. I left that profession, however, because I couldn’t shake the feeling that even when rulings rightly went in favor of my clients, I was making the world a little worse. I needed a career where even when things go poorly, I know they do so while I’m trying to make the world just a little better. I found that in fundraising. Best of all, I am still able to communicate persuasively. Now, though, my clients are Minnesotans experiencing homelessness and the jury is you!
Outside of work, I’m a Twin Cities native who left the state to attend the University of Iowa for both my BA and JD. This means I’m a proud Hawkeye and very ready to give as well as get when they play the Gophers. I now live in Roseville with my wife and teenage son (we’re currently in the process of registering for his freshman year in high school, please send help), and practice self-care through attending live music, running, and watching sports. As I’m an especially big soccer fan, we have season tickets to Minnesota United. I’m also likely to start leading tours of Civil Rights Movement sites in Alabama and Mississippi in October.
As for my work at Alliance, our Fiscal Year 2025 budget calls for raising a total of $390,000 from individual and institutional donors, but we know those societal pressures I mentioned above are going to drive that number up over the next few years. In order to remain a healthy organization and continue providing foundations for our residents to succeed, we anticipate needing to double that fundraising total by 2028. This is eminently doable but requires growing our donor base to bring in more donations. That is where my work comes in.
I am already out giving presentations sharing the work we do with civic organizations and congregations and am in the early stages of planning tours of some of our properties. What I need from you is introductions. Do you belong to a civic organization that brings in speakers? Does your congregation host people for adult forums/temple talks/etc.? Would your friends and neighbors enjoy being invited to your home for drinks and some education about an organization you believe in? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, I’d love to chat about opportunities!
Even if you answered ‘no’ to each question, though, please feel free to reach out with any questions, to learn more, or just to chat. The best way for me to learn how to bring more supporters and donors into this work is to get to know those who are already here, and I’m looking forward to getting to know each of you over the coming months and years.
When: Thursday, September 5, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Where: 700 Tenth Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55415
What: Program at 4:30 p.m.; refreshments; self-guided tours
Please be our guest as we celebrate the groundbreaking of Kyle Garden Square, the transformation of a 1920s-era office building into 59 units of supportive housing for people exiting homelessness and earning very low incomes. Property residents will receive on-site supportive services from Alliance partner Touchstone Mental Health.
A brief walking tour will highlight the colorful history and evolution of the site, including its most recent use as a surgical training center for medical professionals. Join us to celebrate our partners in making this new housing resource in our community!
Questions? Please contact Jessie Hendel at 612-879-7633 or jhendel@alliancehousinginc.org
For many years, Alliance and other nonprofit owned affordable housing organizations were able to claim property tax exemption status as 501(c)(3) organizations. However, when the City of Minneapolis unexpectedly revoked this status in 2019, we found ourselves scrambling to respond. Property tax exemption provides an important reduction in expenses for Alliance, especially crucial as property operating expenses rise quickly. It allows us to keep rents affordable even without subsidies and allows our fundraising dollars to go towards paying for rent, maintenance, and staffing, as opposed to property taxes.
We’ve been fortunate to have the assistance of Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath LLP and Larkin Hoffman in appealing this decision. Earlier this year, their hard work paid off when the issue made it all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The court ruled in favor of Alliance, reinstating our property tax exemption status. This was a significant victory not just for Alliance, but for many organizations like ours.
Yet, our work was not done. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Hennepin County pursued a legislative change that would remove property tax exemption for some nonprofit and charitable organizations providing only housing. You may have seen our outreach earlier this spring, asking you to contact your legislators to oppose this change. While we understand the importance of property taxes in providing revenue for the city, we opposed this change due to its unknown implications and the affects it would have on nonprofit housing providers who are already struggling to keep up with rising costs.
As of the end of the legislative session in late May, Hennepin County’s effort was unsuccessful. This was a relief, but we recognize that there will be continued attempts to pursue the issue. We will continue to advocate on behalf of our tenants and our ability to provide low-cost housing and hope you will join us.
Our hope is that going forward, the county will be open to discussion with nonprofit housing providers and others affected by this change to determine a solution that works for all. We believe in the power of dialogue and collaboration and hope that future discussions will lead to solutions that balance the needs of both the city with the critical role of nonprofit housing providers. Alliance Housing is committed to its mission of providing affordable housing and will continue to advocate for policies that support this goal.
Even though it’s been over a year since COVID-19 public health emergencies were lifted, the affordable housing landscape remains unstable. Inflation, skyrocketing maintenance costs, as well as increased security costs have caused major financial hardship, especially for organizations like Alliance who keep our rents low to serve those left out of market rate housing opportunities.
As highlighted by a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis study, “Talking ‘toilets, taxes, and tenants’: Challenges mount for apartment owners in the Twin Cities area”, the costs of maintaining properties for not only nonprofits and affordable housing, but for-profit and market rate managers as well, have skyrocketed. From maintenance to taxes, insurance premiums to building security, costs have increased in nearly every corner of the industry.
In response to these ongoing struggles the Minnesota Legislature introduced a lifeline for many organizations – the Stable Housing Organization Relief Program (SHORP). This one-time $50 million grant is designed to support non-profit affordable housing owners like us who are facing rising costs on all fronts. Alliance applied for this grant last fall and were awarded funds to go towards maintaining and stabilizing our properties.
These temporary relief measures like SHORP and RentHelpMN are crucial for nonprofit housing providers to maintain stability as we move out of COVID-19 and into the “new normal”, however, in many ways they are band-aid solutions. The bigger structural issues driving these financial challenges remain unsolved. For big for-profit owners, hiking up rents hasn’t been enough to patch the holes in their cash flow. And for affordable housing providers like us, raising rents often isn’t an option as it doesn’t align with our mission of providing affordable and deeply accessible housing.
Emily, an Alliance tenant who recently graduated with a master’s degree in Healthcare Management, expressed her concerns about the potential rent increase. “A rise in rent would be a significant challenge for our household, especially as I’m starting a career in my field,” she said. Emily believes that stable rents provide the foundation for stable housing, which in turn “offers a platform for a successful life where dreams become reality.” She added, “We’re just getting by as it is, so any increase in rent could bring unwanted stress.”
We need comprehensive, lasting solutions to address the long-term challenges this sector faces. The Minneapolis Fed report drives this point home further. It notes how owners both big and small, for-profit or nonprofit, affordable or market-rate, are all struggling with these financial strains. As the report puts it: “Owners large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, affordable and market-rate, locally based and national, all face significant challenges that, if left unaddressed, could endanger the region’s housing supply.”
While Alliance is grateful for support like SHORP, these measures provide only temporary relief. We need to keep advocating for policies that truly bolster affordable housing providers for the long haul. And it’s going to take a united effort to preserve affordable housing providers in not just Minnesota but across the country.
Over the past four years Alliance has provided updates related to our effort to maintain property tax exemption status after being denied exemption by Hennepin County in 2020. After several years of advocacy, Alliance prevailed and the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed our exemption status according to state law. This was a win not only for Alliance, but for nonprofit-owned affordable housing across the state.
Alliance successfully brought an action in the Minnesota Tax Court to retain these exemptions. Hennepin County then appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which affirmed the tax court’s decision. The Court held that the properties in question should be tax-exempt since they are owned by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and rented to fulfill its charitable purpose of providing affordable housing. Hennepin County is now advocating for legislation in the Minnesota Legislature that would deny tax exemption unless “a portion of the property is permanently used by the charitable organization to provide services to the intended beneficiaries of the organization’s work.
Hennepin County is seeking legislation as part of the omnibus tax bill (SF 5234/HF 5247) that would effectively eliminate tax exemption for some nonprofit-owned affordable housing rented to low-income and formerly homeless Minnesotans.
The change proposed by Hennepin County would effectively eliminate the property tax-exempt status for nonprofit housing providers across Minnesota, many of whom serve Minnesotans facing the greatest risk of homelessness. Organizations like Alliance operate at a loss and must seek charitable donations to help pay the cost of operating these properties, as rental revenues fall well short of operating expenses.
Eliminating tax exemption for these properties would require Alliance to either seek significant additional donations or subsidies, or to raise the rents charged to tenants who are already struggling to afford housing. This would have a $100,000 annual impact on Alliance alone.
Alliance and its peers hope to work with Hennepin County to meet their shared goals of preventing homelessness and ensuring a range of housing options. Alliance supports a change to Minn. Stat. § 273.19 to clarify that individuals residing in nonprofit-owned affordable housing should not be subject to tax as a result of the property’s tax-exempt status, as they are its intended beneficiaries.
Learn more about Alliance’s position on the new legislation.
Thank you to all of you who have reached out to ask how Alliance Housing is weathering the effects of the COVID-19 virus. The short answer is “we’re doing business nearly as normal.” Turns out it’s pretty difficult to fix a toilet or get a furnace running while working virtually. Those of us who are more office-based are still reporting to work. Property management in our world is highly paper and file intensive. Most of those things don’t exist in digital platforms. Our office is small. We have our own space and are all happy to report to work.
The real heroes are Raymond, Craig, Michael and Bob – our caretakers, maintenance and property management staff. They continue to visit tenant homes and building common space to clean, repair and collect rent. They are aware of and practice good hygiene practices. Everyone’s hands are ready to crumble off with extra hand washing. We all healthy and will not endanger tenant’s health if and when we have signs of being ill.
Our real worries are for our tenants. Forty three percent of our tenants work – primarily parttime and low wage hourly ($10-$15) jobs. Others receive social security, disability or some other sort of rent support. They will be less affected. We’re assessing the damage but know many of them have already been laid off or lost hours. We’ve always been in the business of accepting late rent payments and negotiating payment plans. Now will be no different. It just may be delayed a bit longer. Worst case scenario, if 100% of working tenants paid no rent, it amounts to about $25,000 per month. Fortunately, we can weather that for a few months.
If you want to help, we are contemplating a fund that could eventually forgive $1 of rent for each $1 of rent paid. We think this will help immensely because families will be so far behind if they are out of work for 2 or more months, it will be nearly impossible for them ever to catch up. They simply don’t earn sufficient income to ever get ahead. As foundation funds are made available or additional gifts are received from donors through June, we’ll seed and create the fund.
As always, if you have other questions or suggestions, please call or email me at 612-879-7633 or bjeanetta@alliancehousinginc.org.
Where we live impacts every aspect of our lives; the jobs we can access, the education our children receive and the wellbeing of our growing senior population. One’s income and history of credit, housing and convictions effects where we live further – and for some is the reason for their homelessness.
Alliance Housing is one of some 170 organizations who have banded together to ensure:
Together, with a similar message, we’ll advocate for $140 million in bonds to create supportive rental housing, preserve housing with existing federal investments, promote homeownership through community land trusts and make improvements to the state’s public housing.
It is these type of bonds that are the basis of funding for Minnehaha Commons – Alliance’s project for adults over 55 years old with a history of homelessness. While we won’t directly benefit from any new appropriation in the next year, we know from talking to people every day and for the 300 some adults and families on our “interest list” that there is a pressing need for more housing options today. It also gives us a network to continue to influence unreasonable screening criteria and get more property owners back to the business of housing people.
Learn more at www.homesforallmn.org. Follow the work on Twitter @Homes4AllMN.
Selena has a lot to be proud of. She works full time as a Credit Advisor at Target Corporate, making $15.50 an hour, while raising her son, Sean, who just turned two in November. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in Gary, Indiana in 2011, has a degree in cosmetology, and moved to Minneapolis in May of 2014. In June 2014, Selena came to our program when she found herself without a home. Although she had experienced homelessness as a child, this was her first time encountering homelessness as an adult. While at the shelter, Selena met Melanie, who works with our Northside Supportive Families Program, and got accepted into the program, working at both Target and the Children’s Place for $8.20 an hour.
Unhappy with the late hours and low wage, Selena left her retail jobs for a position with Wells Fargo. After being with Wells Fargo for six months, she applied for a job with Target Corporate and got accepted to the position she now has, which she loves. Making nearly double what she earned at the start of the program, Selena has been able to pay off $1,000 in debt, while budgeting money to save for a car. She is proud to have raised her credit score, and that she has enough discipline to pay off what debt she still has left. Having the past experience of raising her credit score, she is calm despite recent bumps in the road, knowing that she has the skills needed to manage her money and get back to where she wants to be. She’s also started couponing, and managing her money makes her hopeful that she’ll be sufficient on her own.
One quote Selena goes by is, “think rich, look poor.” As she describes it, “Right now, (living this way), it’s only temporary— save, reach your goals to do what you dream of. Right now you don’t have to buy all of the fancy materials, but live within your means and plan for the future. I’m thinking for the future rather than living rich now. That’s what a lot of people do, I’m trying to do the opposite.”
Although she isn’t currently using her cosmetology degree, she is working on getting licensed in Minnesota so she can have the career she dreams of. She’s proud to be saving and building a cushion of stability through her career at Target, while watching Sean grow up and become “this new person”, a sometimes bossy two year old who loves the word “mine”.
More than anything, Selena is hopeful for stability. “I hope for stability, that’s all I hope for. I just want my kid to be in a good school and for me to be able to provide for the both of us.”
It depends on who you are. Fair housing laws were created in 1968 to make sure landlords treated all potential tenants the same with screening procedures, tenant selection and application fees. HUD hires people to test out fair housing laws and prosecutes those who aren’t treating applicants fairly.
I’d like to challenge the framework of fair housing rules where they are used to screen out certain classes and groups of people based on their criminal, credit and housing history. While past behavior can be a good predictor of future behavior, it doesn’t allow for life circumstances or give someone a second chance to behave differently in the future. I believe that the opportunity to get a second chance should be a cornerstone in the philosophy of all affordable housing developers and managers. We use public dollars to serve people with low incomes, and people who for one reason or another face challenges in securing stable housing, because of a disability, a history of homelessness, or simply a history of poor decisions.
Let me offer a few examples of where I don’t think fair housing is fair. Many affordable housing managers have a list of criminal issues that will screen out various types of felony offenses for a year, or five years, or ten years, or for life. These are persons who have done their time and, in many cases, their probation or parole. Nonetheless, they must continue to “serve time” by being barred from housing opportunities. Police department crime prevention units exacerbate the problem by encouraging landlords to bar former criminals from their rental property.
Let’s say you are someone with a history, ready to turn your life in the right direction. If you are lucky enough to make it past the criminal background check, a landlord will most likely review your credit and housing history. If you’ve been poor, you’ve probably not paid credit cards timely and likely had to give up an apartment because you couldn’t keep up with the rent. Most recently, we’ve seen tenants facing a Catch-22 situation. Potential landlords insist that an applicant pay off a previous landlord for rent delinquencies before they will rent to them. I am sympathetic to some extent; we all want to rent to people that will pay rent on time. But we also know that there are myriad processes, both informal and legal, that a landlord can use to terminate the lease of a tenant delinquent on rent. It should be within the scope of our mission to give someone a second chance, because it is possible to get them to voluntarily or legally move if they don’t.
Public resources to build affordable housing are scarce. Competition to be awarded them is fierce. I think most public funders want to prioritize the most needy. Yet, best practices of property management, including exclusionary tenant screening done in the name of fair housing, encourages just the opposite – excluding the most needy in favor of the least problematic.
Alliance Housing relies on relational property management and has almost no tenant screening criteria. We take referrals from homeless shelters and other social service providers. We house those other landlords screen out. We know our tenants by name, know the ups and downs of their life, and work with them to keep them stably housed. Our mantra, coined by our former Director, Herb Frey, is, “We’ll house you as long as you pay your rent (mostly on time) and behave yourself.” We believe this is our mission. If more landlords lived our mission, it would make many more housing units available without spending the money to build another unit.
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